My Man Builds Coffins
by memaikins
Summary: [ONE SHOT] • Daria Jameson learned of the late, great United States all throughout her years growing up in Vault 101. But when she emerged to a husk of civilization that was nothing like the polished technicolor dreams painted in her textbooks, she seeks out a dark companion to carry out what is, essentially, a mercy to the denizens of the Capital Wastes.


She buried each person in Megaton. Not through graves or prayer, but by the power of nuclear annihilation. Dark eyes watched as that too bright light expanded over the horizon, another blight wiped out, another mistake corrected.

People living in squalor, in filth, using primitive means to live. This was the great America that was drilled into her head all this time? This was the great nation that was praised day in and day out of Vault 101?

No. Not if she had anything to say about it.

She cleansed them. Gave them a place to rest. This was no world for Americans to live in, she thought bitterly as the rotting metal squealed under her weight outside of Moriarty's saloon. That men and women alike groped and grabbed her, meat fresh for the taking, naive innocent flesh on sale for the price of her dignity.

Moriarty called her a wee poppet. A sweet little thing with an ass ripe for the taking.

Darling Daria had never once felt anger like that bubble in her gut. Anger and embarrassment and disgust and fear. What she wouldn't give to return to that moment, where she didn't sit there, frozen in tears as the men jeered, "It was just a joke, sweet cheeks." What if she had fought back?

But she didn't, did she?

She'd make them pay. The innocents she said a prayer for. Asked Jesus Christ as she knelt by her bedside to give them a place for angels like them. Like Manya and Billy and Maggie. Even for Gob, who had no right to live looking and surviving the way he did.

No, no, no. This was not what she pictured when she escaped.

Then Burke approached her that day, with all the gentlemanly trappings that she read in the books she snuck out from Amata's room. Stories of suave, mysterious men who wore sharp suits and nice hats and who always called the protagonists, "Miss".

That's what he did. He was a gentleman. And gentlemen with manners shouldn't have to suffer the indignity of the wastelands. They deserved better.

"Miss Jameson, was it?" He called to her, purring with a deep, dark voice, "Won't you sit with me for a moment?"

"Are you gonna grab me?" She put her arms around herself protectively, near shrinking in the corner. Wild strands of dark hair falling over her face, as though the more she hid, the more she could just escape to better, safer times.

But Mr. Burke never once let up. He gave a charming smile, extended a careful hand, "My dearest, I would never dream of doing such a thing to outrage your modesty."

She drew a shaky breath. Something about the way he spoke stirred something within her. Everything she had ever known was now ripped away from her, everything she had ever known had been a lie. Little wonder then, why she fought the reason in her head, 'Don't trust him. Don't trust him. Don't trust him.'

But there she was, legs carrying over to the beaten up arm chair in the corner room of the saloon.

God, she spoke, carefully in the voice deep in her heart, God please let him be good to me.

"I have a proposition for you, Miss Jameson."

She listened to his every word. Hung onto every vowel and consonant. Was this what it was like, she thought, when the followers first heralded the words and teachings of Christ. When he sat the forgotten and unloved on his lap and told them all, "I forgive you all and to you all I will take you to paradise".

That's what it felt like, it must've.

Like the Bible stories of heroes who find their salvation through great sacrifice, this would be Daria's big sacrifice. A chance to make the difficult decision in order to grant everyone redemption.

Burke promised her a paradise. Clean water and civilized folk, people who understood what America was really, truly like. People who did what they could to maintain the great culture of this great nation.

So when Burke gave her the job, told her of the paradise, Daria diligently did as she was told.

She spent her days in the vault reading repair manuals, romance novels and her mother's Bible. It took her days to find the parts for the detonator, took even more to convince Burke that she needed more time. Truthfully, she loved it when he came around. He had a quiet danger under the clean pressed suit.

But like the heroines of her stories, she would tame him. Like Jesus and the sinners, she would win his affections with love.

And so she did.

She begged the Lord for forgiveness when she'd have to tease him with her feminine wiles. She didn't know how men worked, but if the novels she read had anything to go by, she knew men loved when you riled them up with flashes of skin, promises of more, and then taking it all back and making them mad with lust and desire.

As she built her detonator, she'd flirt with him every time Mr. Burke visited. He would ask, "How is the device coming along, Miss Jameson?"

"You can call me Daria," she winked.

And even though his eyes were hidden behind those tortoiseshell glasses, she knew she won when she she caught the faintest smirk twitching in the corner of his lips.

"Is that so?"

"Very much so," she had hoped it wasn't too noticeable how she pulled the zipper down the front of her suit.

The Bible taught modesty and piety, but Daria knew this was a small sacrifice. Cleanse the Wasteland, remove the blight of Raiders and suffering. She would begin her Rapture here, cleaning towns and cities, one by one, until only the pure would live. The innocents would always go to Heaven and know no suffering, and that was what she told herself every night as she dreamt darkly of Mr. Burke and his paradise.

So lost in her thoughts, Daria hardly noticed Burke had been speaking, "-enpenny would like to meet you."

"I'm sorry?"

Mr. Burke had been kind, charismatic even, so he did not show an ounce of impatience when he repeated himself, "My dear Daria, after this little problem had been taken care of, Mr. Tenpenny would like meet you."

"He… he would?"

"He's offered an invitation," Mr. Burke smiled with pride, "High praise from a man of Mr. Tenpenny's caliber."

"That's… oh my, that's really very flattering."

"It ought to be," Mr. Burke closed the distance between them, and put a hand on her hip, "I have been telling him great things about you. I hope you don't disappoint."

Her heart swirled and jumped and threatened to collapse in on itself. He was touching her, she could feel him under the suit.

God above, she wanted to sing.

"I just need a few more parts, a few more." She began to stammer, to fluster.

He smiled and strode back to the side table in her workshop, "I've a present for you."

Her eyes went wide, "I really couldn't accept anything more. The letters you've sent…"

"Nothing compared to this."

From his luggage, he fished out a long, velvety black dress. Tight in all the right places, made for a woman. Daria could hardly see herself in such an outfit, but she wanted to.

"Do you want to try it on?"

Daria stammered, "I've… I've never worn, never worn anything like this in the Vault."

That charming smirk never left.

"Then let me help you."

She dropped the tools in her hands as Mr. Burke reached down to kiss her. Every deep, dark desire bubbling in her chest as he reached around and pulled her closer. Through the thin, tailored fabric, she grew faint as she felt what seemed like muscles under his suit.

Those were what the love interests always were described like. Muscular, but unassuming under a clean suit. Presenting as harmless and gentlemanly on the outside, but underneath it all?

She begged for forgiveness again, 'Oh my Lord I'm so sorry. He makes me feel this way, I can't help it. He promises paradise, I have to do what I can.'

When the day came, they walked hand in hand back to Tenpenny Towers. Far away from the filth and squalor of Megaton.

Alistair Tenpenny was a wisened old man, who sat in luxury and civility. This was what America ought to be like. Damn the bombs and damn the war, they would strive to continue as if nothing had changed, that nothing had bothered them.

That was what she loved about Burke. About everyone in the Tower. He didn't succumb to the hardships of the new America before them. He didn't give in. He put on a suit, put on his manners and carried on.

That was what God would have wanted. That He would not help those who did not help themselves first. Those bellyachers and sinners in Megaton would be free of it all. The pure would be returned home to the Lord.

It was all she told herself when she gripped the railings of the balcony of the Tenpenny Tower suite. Burke snaked an arm around her waist from behind her, resting his chin on her shoulder as he whispered sweet nothings in her ear.

"And once you push that button, my dearest Daria," he nibbled on her lobe, kissing her there tenderly, "We will begin a new America."

She felt nothing but pride when she pushed that button. She was here to deliver the sinners and saints to their end.

And she would do it with Burke by her side.

"Revelation 21:6. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life, freely."


End file.
